Okay, I think what Tracy is asking here is not necessarily “How do I find the niche that I want to get into?” It’s more like, “I’ve got a niche I want to pursue. How do I know if it is profitable?”

So there are a couple of ways that you can do that and one of the first things that I always look for in a niche is are there competitors out there that are making money in this niche? This doesn’t have to be a very specific thing, like, exactly what you’re doing but more like a broad sense.

For example, I knew when I got into the coaching stuff, I knew that coaches would pay for playbooks. I knew that they would buy drill videos and other things to help them become a better coach, but there was nobody out there offering the exact playbook for my defense. I knew that there were people out there that would pay money for this stuff. I just had to create something that maybe didn’t exist in the marketplace or a better version of what was already out there.

I think that one of the first things you need to do is just go to Google and search for your niche. See if you can find competitors. See if you see advertising. If people are advertising over on the sidebar for products, that’s probably a good sign that people are out there and they are willing to pay good money for whatever product you’re going to create for your niche.

JOCELYN: Don’t be scared away if there are competitors. I mean, there are a lot of very competitive niches out there and people are able to make things work so don’t think that just because there are people out there doing what it is you want to do that there’s no way that you can make it. I mean, there are billions of people on the earth so chances are, someone will be interested in what you are doing.

The next thing that you can do to evaluate a potential niche is to see what is out there for free. Chances are if you are interested in a particular niche, it’s something that you personally are interested in, it’s really important to think about if you would be willing to pay for your product. I think there are a lot of people out there who have ideas and there’s lots of good information out there already for free.

That’s even true with my site, with the lessons plans. There are tons of lesson plans out there for free but for me, I want a consistent lesson plan every single day that was aligned to national standards that I didn’t have to think about and I could come in and just turn the key and make it work. I knew that I personally would be willing to pay for that.

I have a friend who wanted to start a site about like prayers and blessings. That was a great idea but the problem is, I mean, you can just type in a prayer at any time and that can come up totally for free. I think that there could possibly be a site for that but I don’t know if you are going to be able to sell like an e-book or product on that just because of the nature of what it is. Really, it comes down to what are you really selling.

On my site, on www.ElementaryLibrarian.com, I’m selling time because these people, they don’t have time to sit around and make up these lesson plans that take me like 30 minutes to an hour apiece, each one. So they are buying time and that’s what I’m selling, so just something to consider as you are creating your digital product.

SHANE: So when you do some keyword research for your niche, you can go in and you can look up like “free information” or whatever it is, like Jocelyn might put in “free lesson plans.” You can go out and see what is out there for free and then maybe you can find a void in the market and you can make something unique or different that you can charge for that might make your niche more profitable.

Don’t go out there and try to attack niches where there’s a ton of free stuff and do it exactly like everybody else. Niches are there. If niches exist, if you find it in the keyword research, if you find 10,000 searches for a free product, you can look at that and say, “There is a market but they are in the market for the free thing. Maybe I can add something, have a spinoff.”

Like Jocelyn didn’t make lesson plans, she made a complete 185-day system that you can follow and you don’t have to sit around and make that. That was the product that made her unique and stand out from all the free stuff out there. Maybe you could do something like that to create a market and look for competitors.

If people are spending money on advertising for a niche, if you see that in Google, on Facebook, then that’s a good sign that it is a profitable niche and all you have to do is carve out a little spot in that niche market for yourself.

That was a great question, Tracy. Hope that helped. Thank you guys so much for all your questions. We’ve been getting dozens and dozens of questions in our Facebook Group on Sunday nights. If you want to leave us a question, check in at 8 PM Eastern Time on Sunday nights over at www.Facebook.com/FlippedLifestyle and leave your question and we will try to get to it on a future episode of “The QA with S&J.”

We’ll see you all next time. Bye.

JOCELYN: Bye.

SHANE: Do you need step by step instruction? Do you need us to help you create your digital product and get your online business started? Well, you can do that. We actually now offer a course called the Flip Your Life e-course where we show you how to create your first digital product in 29 days or less.

All you have to do to get more information on this program is go to www.FlippedLifestyle.com/FlipYourLife, and that’s all one word, and you can check out everything that we do in that course to help you get your digital product created for sale online even if you don’t have a website. That’s www.FlippedLifestyle.com/FlipYourLife. You can check when our next session is starting at that link.

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Comments

You hit upon the most difficult part of all of this and that is choosing a topic. This is where your strategy of minimal viable product can be so helpful. Spend a little time creating something and offer it to the world. If people like it, you might have a product. Thanks guys!

Jocelyn, Could your friend have used a different method of monitizing his prayer blog? Maybe becoming an affiliate for appropriate products already out there with a price tag? Or maybe linking the prayer site with meditation products? I have noticed tons of free cooking /recipe type sites that are Amazon affifiates and the provide links for unusual gourmet products for people to buy over at Amazon to have the ingredients for specific recipes.